


Measure to Measure Up

by Panny



Category: DC Extended Universe, Man of Steel (2013), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Clothed Sex, Dubious Consent, F/F, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-08-13 12:48:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20174512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panny/pseuds/Panny
Summary: The red glow faded from Faora’s eyes as they widened slightly, betraying her surprise. She released Diana’s wrist, but did not risk relinquishing the grip on her throat. Probably a wise choice if she wanted to keep all of her teeth. “I don’t understand you.”





	Measure to Measure Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liodain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liodain/gifts).

Diana knew she wouldn’t have time to crash her bracelets together before she even brought her arms up. Sharp as her reflexes were, she couldn’t move faster than a Kryptonian and Faora-Ul had learned well from their last encounter. It was why Bruce wasn’t already here with kryptonite at the ready. It was why Clark had been pulled out of the fight, dealing with the flooding water from the dam she’d destroyed. It was why this part was up to her.

Impossibly strong fingers seized her forearms, but it was the driving force behind them that rattled her bones. Faora did not want to fight Diana from the ground; even getting her this close had taken no small amount of effort. It only made sense – flight was her most significant advantage and whatever force she lost without a surface to push off from was negligible. But it had been harder the first time she’d fought a Kryptonian. She hadn’t wanted to hurt Clark.

Faora was not Clark and the rest of the League. She had spent her life fighting with and for and against equals, people who could match her in strength and ability. She had never been a god among men, an alien, a hero, Atlas holding up the whole world because it would break the back of anyone else who tried. Even fighting his foes, Clark was so careful, but Faora had never had to learn how to hold back so she didn’t. When Diana felt the force bowl into her, her first instinct was to dig in, let her heels run into the hard earth below her and try to stop her momentum. She would not win that inevitably short battle of attrition; Faora would eventually succeed in bowling or over or pushing her down or would realize that all she had to do was pull up and Diana would lose whatever leverage she had.

But Faora was not Clark and the rest of the League. She had never had to fight someone inherently stronger than herself; she had never had to learn how to win. Diana turned her wrists so that she could seize Faora’s forearms in turn, locked into a vicious parody of a warrior’s greeting, and let herself be pushed back, allowing gravity to do the work of pulling her downward. Faora started to fall with her, caught off-guard by the sudden change in momentum, still so new to flying that she couldn’t quite stop herself from tilting with the determined pull of Diana’s arms. It was all Diana needed. She hooked one leg, tucking her foot securely behind Faora’s thigh and let their momentum roll them over; there was some of Bruce in the maneuver. Diana didn’t give Faora time to recover while she was on her back, driving one elbow into her sternum and using her other hand to firmly press her face into the ground, keeping the instinctive red glow of her eyes firmly pointed at the tree line, before moving to straddle and pin her. Diana rarely had the opportunity to apply all of her strength, but she gave no quarter now. It would mean death for at least one of them if she did.

Faora did not give in easily, bucking and twisting underneath her. Diana drew her sword and pressed the sharp edge of the blade to Faora’s neck in warning. “There aren’t many things on Earth that can truly harm a Kryptonian,” she said. “I have learned, however, that your kind is just as vulnerable to magic as any other. I wield the Sword of Athena, an enchanted blade passed down from the goddess herself. Do not give me cause to test it on you now.”

Faora stilled beneath her, utterly unmoving. Unlike Clark, she did not engage in the pretense of breathing. It was disconcerting to feel the stillness of her chest, even as she turned her attention – carefully, even more so as Diana shifted her blade – to study Diana’s face. A slight downward twitch of her lip was the only thing to betray the placid coolness of her expression. “And yet, having the upper hand, you would choose to stay your blade and let me live.”

Diana tossed her head slightly, shifting her hair from her face, letting certainty ground her. “You’re right. I would.”

Now the downturn of Faora’s lips became more pronounced, disgust flinting her eyes and rendering them hard. “Then you disrespect me as your opponent. A true warrior would never let an enemy at her mercy return to threaten her another day.”

“There is more than one way to win. This is the way that I have chosen.”

“Then you will lose everything.” Faora’s expression settled back into its stoic mask, but the threat was clear: _I will take everything_.

“But I will not lose myself.” Diana let the weight of her years strengthen her voice, imbuing them with a command so firm that even she could believe them. Still, her hands twisted and tightened around the sword grip even as the blade remained steady. She let her thumb stroke along the line of Faora’s cheekbone, a gentle, compassionate touch in harsh contrast to the bruising force the rest of her hand maintained. It was all the concession she could allow herself, but she understood loneliness too well to not at least do that much. Faora shuddered underneath her, eyes suddenly wide and wild, hand almost reaching for Diana’s wrist before thinking better of it. Diana’s heart broke for pity even as it lurched with something else. How long had it been since Faora had been touched with the simple intent to comfort? How long had it been since Diana had allowed herself such casual intimacy? “For what it’s worth, I am sorry for all that you have lost. I am sorry that you are alone.”

“And whose fault is that?” It wasn’t Diana’s. It wasn’t Clark’s and it wasn’t humanity’s, but Faora would hardly be open to hearing that. “Krypton was owed a better future than this.”

Diana felt Faora shift again and braced herself, but she didn’t try to buck upwards as she expected. Instead, Faora abruptly drove her feet _down_, splitting the rock beneath her, the shifting ground throwing Diana off balance for a precious unacceptable few seconds. Faora’s hand seized her throat before throwing her harshly back. Diana did not have the luxury of not struggling for breath.

Faora stood over her, regarding her with dispassionate calm. Diana braced herself, preparing for blows that would surely be as punishing as they were inevitable. And then Faora was nothing more than a streak of dark against Earth’s blue sky.

* * *

Diana was aware that she was being followed long before she risked looking to confirm. She didn’t slow her pace, didn’t deviate from her path in any obvious way, tried to make the detour down the alley look like a natural unimpulsive decision. The well-built woman in the dark sunglasses didn’t falter in following her. It was as Diana was reaching for the lasso, hidden beneath her clothes, that she felt her opponent’s weight drive into her back, pushing her almost too hard against the wall, fast enough that she would have been certain of her identity even if the disguise hadn’t been paper thin.

“Don’t,” Faora said. “You don’t want to fight me here. With them.” Pressed against the brickwork as she was, she couldn’t see Faora’s expression, but she didn’t need to in order to understand the weight of the threat, to think of the people who even now traveled the city streets as if nothing more threatening than rush hour traffic might ruin their day. She drove an elbow back, catching Faora in the gut. She turned, following up with her fist, but Faora caught her wrist, squeezing painfully and pushed her back. Her other hand seized her neck and squeezed lightly in warning. Diana glared even as she was forced to swallow through the uncomfortable tightness of the grip. “Don’t,” Faora repeated.

Diana brought her free hand up to wrap around Faora’s wrist, squeezing a little herself, inordinately pleased to see the minute flinch of her expression, even if it was accompanied by red eyes and an unsubtle retaliation that left Diana short of breath. “Then don’t dishonour me with empty threats,” Diana said. “If you really came here to fight, you wouldn’t hold back like this.”

The red glow faded from Faora’s eyes as they widened slightly, betraying her surprise. She released Diana’s wrist, but did not risk relinquishing the grip on her throat. Probably a wise choice if she wanted to keep all of her teeth. “I don’t understand you.”

It was Diana’s turn to be surprised. She watched the unreadable flicker in Faora’s expression as her breath hitched. “Do you want to?”

“Not particularly. Neither of us will be swayed by the other’s ideals – what would be the point?” Even so, Diana felt the pressure of her hand change, flattening, feeling. She watched Faora’s eyes dip, almost curiously to watch the path of her breath. “And you? Do you understand me?”

“I would like to.” The expression that passed over Faora’s face this time was not so hard to read, however briefly it remained – cold rage, unmistakable. For a moment, Diana expected the hand to tighten again and felt the muscles in her arms tense, but it didn’t. Instead it slid lower, enough that the thumb could run across her breastbone. Diana shuddered, unable to help the reaction. It wasn’t a kind touch, wasn’t what her body wanted to mistake it for, and yet –

“I can hear your heartbeat,” Faora said and Diana became almost unbearably conscious of her own pulse, feeling it pick up speed as if in response to the attention. “Are you afraid?”

“No.”

“No.” Faora didn’t sound surprised, sounded almost pleased. She leaned in close, face hovering by Diana’s neck, as if to hear it better, as if she couldn’t hear halfway around the world, as if such a gesture was necessary. If she had been human, her breath would have been close enough for Diana to feel it on her skin. She shivered again and it was hard to tell herself that however closely it might parody the attentions of a lover, that that wasn’t what was happening. Surely Faora wasn’t unaware; they weren’t that different in this respect. She wondered which of them had gone without longer. “I wonder why it beats so fast for me then.”

Diana was abruptly too aware of her own breathing, of the speed with which her chest moved, of how transparent she must have been to Faora. She couldn’t help but focus on the way that Faora’s knee had landed between her own, but the position was wrong just like the position of her hand was wrong, but they could be moved so easily –

A strong hand seized Diana roughly through the crotch of her pants, fingers moving over the fabric in a way that was too direct to be teasing and too unsatisfying to offer relief. “I can smell you,” Faora said, as if Diana wasn’t already frustratingly aware of her own arousal. Her fingers pushed upward, easily forcing the stitching to give way and then they were inside her. Diana’s thighs squeezed together almost involuntarily with enough force that it would have hurt anyone else’s hand. Faora didn’t quite smirk, but there was a certain cool pleasure in her eyes that made Diana grit her teeth. Then the fingers began to move, harsh and arrhythmic, and Diana shut her eyes, turning her face away as if it could better force her voice into silence. Even so, she could hear the sounds of the fingers moving in and out of her, wondered how much more obvious the noises would be to Faora. Wondered if she found pleasure in hearing it, wondered if it made her wet in turn, felt pleasure jolt almost uncomfortably in her gut at the thought. “Everything on this world feels so intense all the time. You’re lucky you don’t have Kryptonian senses. It would drive you mad.” Lips slid over the pounding pulse in her neck, more of an exploration than a gesture of affection, monitoring her heartbeat as Diana tightened around Faora’s fingers, her own hands clawing into the chipped brickwork behind her, flaking off pieces that she’d have to pry from under fingernails later. When Faora released her, it was abrupt, leaving her to support herself on shaky legs, the afterglow of her orgasm cut short.

“I will leave you alive, Wonder Woman, at the end of it all. I will let you stand in the ruins of everything that you love to watch the only home you’ve ever known crumble away. Maybe then we can stand as equals.” Faora wiped her hand carelessly over her own thigh, retrieving her sunglasses from where they’d fallen on the ground. “I look forward to seeing the strength of your resolve. I hope you won’t disappoint me.”


End file.
